Iron Bowl

Excessive Force...




















War Eagle.

Preparing for Parenthood Class

Friday night and Saturday, Amy and I took a crash course in parenting at St. Vincent's. They taught us everything we needed to know to be parents. Yeah right. They did cover some major topics such as safety, labor, delivery, bathing baby, etc. They also thought it would be helpful if I put on a 25 lb. "empathy belly", complete with bosom. It was very heavy, and I am very empathetic now. I am actually holding the belly in the picture b/c I really felt like it was going to bend me over. I grabbed my boobs one time trying to keep myself up. That got a nice reaction from the crowd. After lunch on Saturday we toured the birthing suites. They were very nice, at least the nicest that I have ever been in. Just think, we'll be there in less than 2 months!

After the tour we got to practice bathing and diaper changing. I've actually changed a diaper before, but never bathed a baby, much less an infant. It was pretty easy to catch on, but this baby was very well behaved. Among the things we learned is that (since we are 25 minutes away) we should leave for the hospital when the contractions are 10 minutes apart, though I can't imagine waiting until that point. I'll be ready to go when she has the 1st contraction! One thing I have to mention is that Amy was one of 7 Amy's in the class. There were only 18 couples in the whole class. Also, 11 were expecting girls and 7 expecting boys. Almost all were going to be first time parents, but there was one couple expecting their 3rd child. Their youngest is now 12, so they felt like they could use a refresher course. Overall, we thought it was a very helpful class, and our pregnant teacher/nurse did a great job, but I'm really looking forward to on-the-job training.

Nursery Makeover in Progress...

No more gray walls and dirty beige carpet. The old office is looking more like a nursery. The nursery is a little smaller now that 2 more coats of paint have been added to the wall and a thicker carpet has been installed, but I honestly can't tell any difference.
























We have started working on getting a dresser, chest of drawers, and a crib in the new nursery. Hopefully we'll get to post pictures of a fully furnished nursery before too long.

Emily in 3D

Here are a few pictures from yesterday's 4D Ultrasound. They made a VHS tape and snapped several pictures in the process and printed them out for us. These are scanned images of the printouts.

Happy Emily:


















She looks a bit Gerber in this picture, at least to me.

















Little hand in the picture. By the way, her foot was measured to be around 2 1/4" long.

















Chubby cheeks??














The nurse said she had a little Elvis lip going here.



















There were many more pictures, including one with even more proof that Emily is a girl. By the way, the nurse circled it and said, "There's her cheeseburger." Didn't really feel comfortable questioning that, but figured that in the case of a boy they'd say something about a hotdog. Not true...they call it a turtle.

Overall we were very impressed with how well the 4D went. It's well worth the $125. It's amazing that before we were born our parents didn't know whether they had a cheeseburger or a turtle and now a generation later, we can see the baby move in 3D months before birth.